Every now and then, you’re going to have dark times. That’s life. Once these times are over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure if the darkness is done, but one thing is certain. When you come out of those dark times, you won’t be the same person who walked in.

There is an important lesson to remember when you’re having a bad day, a bad month, or a really bad year. Things will change. You won’t feel this way forever. Besides, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs the most. You can’t feel real joy unless you’ve felt heartache, and you can’t have a sense of victory unless you’ve experienced what it means to fail.

Although we can’t go back and make new beginnings, any one of us can make a change, start again and make a new ending.

You’ll learn, as you get older, that rules are made to be broken. So be bold enough to live life on your terms, and never, ever apologise for it. Learn to go against the grain, to refuse to conform, to take the road less travelled instead of the well-beaten path. My friend, stand up for yourself and laugh in the face of adversity, dance as though everybody is watching, march to the beat of your own drum and stubbornly refuse to fit in.

To shine your brightest light is to be who you truly are. You are becoming aware of yourself and your needs. You’ll always find those who think they know your duty better than you know it. They don’t. My wish for you is that you feel no need to limit yourself in any way to make other people comfortable. You’re lucky enough to be different, never change.

You’re not living your life to be small, to compare, to judge yourself or others, to fit in or to be perfect. You’re here to grow, to learn, to love, to be human.

The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people’s minds. A beautiful person isn’t defined by their hair style, their shoes, nor is it the logo on their T-shirt, the sport’s team on their hat, the designer’s name on their hand bag, or even how they smell.

Beauty lies in who you are when no one is watching, the person you are when there’s nothing to hide behind. No amount of concealer can cover up a bad tempered heart. Then again, all the make-up in the world can’t add a single lumen to the brightness of your beautiful soul.

Accept that you are a person with strengths and weaknesses. Make the changes you can in your life and let go of the things that aren’t in your power to change. Learn that every part of you is valuable, and realise that all of your thoughts and feelings are important, even when they’re painful or difficult.

You, my dear friend, are a beautiful soul, the gravitational centre of fascination towards whom all your friends, family and colleagues are inexorably drawn. Be happy, be kind and be safe…

My lovely friend, talk to yourself, tell yourself you are beautiful, tell yourself you are strong. See all the beauty that you have inside and speak it aloud. Let your mind see yourself in a positive light. Your beauty is in your differences not your similarities. Be yourself, share your quirks. The world does not improve when everyone acts the same, the world improves when people act as their unique self.

Self-improvement starts with self-love. When you can appreciate your own self, you can realise the value of caring for yourself: your body and mind. You only exist because of the agreements you made with yourself and with the other humans around you.

It’s such an honour to see someone living as their true-self, someone living without fear of other people’s opinions. Act as you are, you honour the world with your presence. Don’t change yourself to please others, change yourself to please yourself. You are the person that truly matters in your life. You are the person you wake up to every morning and fall asleep to every night. Your life is for you!

You know that wonderful smell, when you smell a pine tree? No matter how long it has been, you always will. It’s as if you are storing a part of that tree in your own body… Everything stays true. You are yourself, no matter how much you have to change.

The only thing you really have to prove is yourself. Hope comes not from the people around you, but from yourself. Your life experience is a moving picture, of which you are writer, director, producer, actor and critic.

It’s never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic and stupidly obvious things about oneself. My life has been one long obstacle course with my doubts and fears being the biggest obstacle. And so I have decided I will stay calm and relaxed no matter what confronts me today, tomorrow and everyday from now on. I want to stay… me.

I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself. Me? I’m made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. I am imperfect, I am flawed, but the imperfections and flaws make me who I am. Unique and individual.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. So be who you are and say what you feel. If I can give any advice it’s this: Don’t let anyone walk through your mind with dirty feet.

My dear friend, you and I are sun and moon; we are sea and land. We’re not intended to become each other; we’re here to recognise each other, to learn to see each other: we’re each the other’s opposite and complement.

Why do we try so hard to fit in, when we’re born to stand out? We should be two things: who and what we want to be.

Never underestimate the power of kindness. It is highly contagious. Any person whose heart is saddened by the troubles of this world, the loss of a friend or family member, an overly hard days work, or the struggle to find the necessities of life can experience joy through a simple act of kindness.

The quality of life is directly proportional to the positive effect we have on others’ lives. I treat people with courtesy and respect because that’s the way I choose to treat everyone. It’s the right thing to do, but never, ever mistake my kindness for weakness. Kindness is more than deeds. It is an attitude, an expression, a look, a touch. It is anything that lifts another person.

Good manners have much to do with the emotions. To make them ring true, we must feel them, not merely exhibit them. My delightful friend, the thing about manners is that we only seem to notice the lack of them in others. It’s so much harder to see mistakes in ourselves. Be honest with yourself. Look harder…